I have an alternative solution. Pay a visit to your friendly neighborhood supermarket and buy their dough. Publix supermarkets in Florida sells ready made dough (based from bread flour) which isn't bad.

You should do what many professional pizza operators do when they run out of their best dough--make an "emergency dough". Use your regular recipe except increase the amount of yeast and use warmer water. Both will expedite the fermentation process but you won't get the flavors of fermentation that you would with prolonged fermentation.

I'm flying a little bit blind here since I don't know what recipe you are using, but I would try doubling the amount of yeast your recipe calls for (however it shouldn't be more than 2% by weight of flour) and I would use a water temperature of about 70-75 degrees F, to get a finished dough temperature of around 85-90 degrees F. Once the dough has been kneaded, lightly coat it with oil, place in a covered container, and let it rise at room temperature. Within an hour and a half, I would expect that it will be ready, and may last another hour or hour and a half beyond that. In the meantime, you may want to be thinking of some plausible excuses if the pizza doesn't turn out as you hoped .

I would put just under 2 t. of IDY and leave everything else as is. I think you are OK timewise, but I wouldn't try to cut it too close. I would put the dough into a bowl rather than a bag since that sucker will rise pretty fast. If it gets a bit out of control you can slow it down a bit by putting it into the refrigerator for a while. What you should be looking for is roughly a doubling of the dough or maybe a bit more.

Don't be surprised if the crust isn't all that great. It's hard to get a great tasting crust within a few hours using a high-gluten flour.

For a faster proof on your dough I would put it in a baking pan (covered) and let it sit in your oven on the very lowest setting just to keep it nice and warm. Maybe even turn your oven off if it gets too hot. Just leave the dough in until it rises to your desired size, pound it down to get the air out. Then put it back in the sealed pan and let it rise some more until your dough is ready to use. I've actually tried this and it worked great for me. It's never gonna be the same as using the dough the next day but you gotta do what ya gotta do for same day recipes.

My wifes family is coming over tonight for pizza and i didnt know until now so i cant do an overnight refridgeration.

I have about 5 hours until they get here.

Should i make the dough now and let it ferment until then at room temperature?

Or should i just do it like most recipes for same day usage call for and make the dough and only let it set out for 1 hour?

or does it not matter either way?

I just want to get the most fermentation i can between now and then.

thanks!

here is my suggestion

make your pizza balls...cover them with a thin sheet of plastic..not airtight though and let them sit until they begin to rise on their own...when you have noticed that it has risen...place them in the fridge....by the evening the next day....they should be ready

I know that its too late nowbutI feel like I'm cheating when I use a sourdough starterYou can make same day pies with the aged taste and texture.They are easy to do and easy to keep up withI have a biga and a sourdough starter that I use for just emergenciesAlso I am waiting to see what Pizzanap has to say about his technique and amountsPizzaholic

Using a biga or a sourdough starter for same-day dough seems like a good way to get added flavor. I wondered about doing that recently when I tried a same-day Lehmann NY style dough. The pizza was OK but not as good as one where the dough had been subjected to an overnight retardation and developed all the good and flavor-enhancing by-products of fermentation. I think I will give the Lehmann recipe a try with a biga or sourdough enhancement. I will only post the results (on the Lehmann thread) if there is an improvement.

Same day doughs are tough enough but with a high-gluten flour you are pushing the limit and you won't get the quality of a retarded dough. I'd like to know more about how the dough behaved from the time it came off the hook until it was shaped. Did it rise properly--or was it too fast or too slow?--, how long did it take the dough to rise, was it elastic or stretchy when you started to work with it? What size was the pizza, how many toppings were used (more than usual?), how was the pizza baked, and at what temperature? Anything else you can tell us might be useful for future endeavors where time is a constraint.

Did it rise properly--or was it too fast or too slow? how long did it take the dough to rise?::: I let it rise for about 2 hours.... it rose great... nice and puffy... at least double the size of the starting ball or more.

was it elastic or stretchy when you started to work with it?::: It was easier to work with than 24 hour dough since the dough was at room temperature or more... BUT it did seem to want to rip apart more.. i had to patch a few holes here and there. Also, when i was stretching i out it had a ton of small bubbles in the dough that i kept having to pop.

What size was the pizza:::: I divided the ball into 2 balls..... each stretched out to 14 inches

how many toppings were used (more than usual?)::: I made the same pizza last night with the same amount of toppings. After about 30 or so pizzas now me and my wife agreed that last nights 24 hour dough combined with these toppings was the best ive ever made. It was amazing. Tonights same day dough pizza had the same great taste, but the crust just wasnt up to snuff as far as the browning, crisp, etc....Toppings were: About 6 slices of Mozzarella, Pepperoni, Spicy Italian Sausage (from a local place), onions, and crushed garlic.

how was the pizza baked, and at what temperature? ::: Baked on a pizza stone at 500 with a 1.5 hour preheat (same as always)

Anything else you can tell us might be useful for future endeavors where time is a constraint.::: While the dough wasnt the same as usual, it was still good enough where everyone who ate thought the pizza was great. Only me and my wife (who have the 24 hour dough always) could tell the difference. But if you are in a jam, this stuff is just fine. I still dont know why it didnt cook as usual though. For some reason the crust just didnt have the same feel... less browning, less crisp,etc.

You will rarely get the same quality out of a same day dough as a retarded one. The crust texture and taste, color, etc., will not be as good. It's good that your guests didn't detect anything out of order. I suspect that is what pizza operators also count on when they use emergency dough.

Tearing is often associated with using lower protein flours, or flours that may not have had adequate kneading or fermentation. I believe you used high-gluten flour, so that shouldn't have been the cause. We know that there was not a lot of fermentation. The bubbles were because of the high amount of yeast used, which was unavoidable under the circumstances. It's hard to train dough to do exactly what you want it to do .

I can't account for the diminished browning of the crust, other than to suggest that it was possible that the stone was too hot and it caused the toppings to cook before the crust was finished baking. I would have thought that the malt extract in the Carnation malted milk would have contributed to the browning. Maybe it would have given a bit more time.

If you anticipate having to make an emergency dough again you may want to do some more experimentation to master the process.

Pete-zzaThanks for the infoYes your a hundred% right about the 24hour retardation in the fridgeI guess that I forgot to say that in a pinch the starter would almost get you thereA good source for biga, poolish,and the like is The Bread Bakers Apprentice by Peter ReinhartI have this and find it very helpful with understanding how things happenthe way they do and the bakers percent used in formulas

I was wondering if the next time I made a batch of dough, if I made extra(an extra batch)and divided it into say 1/4 cup balls and then saved them in the fridge for the next time I made dough. Could I add this 1/4cup size to the fresh dough and let it act as a starter and impart more flavor of the old dough?Just wondering.Pizzaholic

I think the answer to your question may depend on how long the 1/4-cup dough balls will be in the refrigerator before you need to use them. The little balls will continue to ferment while in the refrigerator and, unless you used some sugar and/or cold water in the dough (to prolong fermentation while continuing to feed the yeast), they will ultimately start to run out of steam as the yeast consumes all the natural and added sugars. You might be able to use them in a new batch of same day dough for their flavor (which could be rather intense after 3-4 days), but if they are slack (because of overfermentation) when you add them to the new dough, you may not get any leavening effects and you may also mess up the new dough in some manner, as I discovered one time when I tried adding a basically "dead" dough to some new dough. It made the new dough unusuable. In your case, if the dough balls are weak, you might have to add new yeast to the new dough and not rely on the little balls for leavening. Even then, it's possible that the new yeast could swamp out the small dough ball and negate its flavors. I have seen that happen when I tried it in a sourdough bread context.

I know that some pizza operators "recycle" leftover dough balls at the end of the day by tossing them into a new batch of dough. But that is to save money not to flavor the new dough.

Maybe you can try out your own proposal and see what happens. It should be interesting.

As I mention somewhere else, it is also important the effect that certain enzyme have on a dough.

If you use bread flour, that means that you have a lot of gluten (Protein) and starch (carbohydrates), which are both difficult to digest in their complex form.When you let a strong flour "mature", you give the enzymes a chance to simplyfy the starch and Glutein in simple elements which are also easy to digest.

Have you ever wonder why when you eat certian pizza, you feel heavy and full for so long???

So, for a quick rise dough (up to 5-6 hours) use a plain flour with protein content of 9-10 % (strong flours are about 14%).

However when using weaker flours, you need to work the dough a bit longer to develop the necessary gluten for a good pizza.

I assume you are talking about the alpha-amylase enzyme that attacks the damaged starch molecules in the flour and, together with the beta-amylase enzyme, helps to convert the starch to simple sugars, including maltose, to feed the yeast. If that is so, would a short fermentation period of, say a few hours, be enough to release enough sugar to help in browning of the crust? When Snowdy, one of our fellow members, made his same day dough, he observed that the crust didn't brown up as much as one made from a fermented, retarded dough. Could that have been because the enzymes (and maybe even the protease enzyme) didn't have a long enough time to do their job?

Also, does it take longer to break down the starch in a higher-gluten flour, such as Snowdy used, than a lower-gluten flour?

When looking at the effect of alpha -amylase enzymes, you need to understand that it does not only benefit the yeast or the browning, but more importantly the digestibility of the dough.The enzymes activity rate is variable from flour to flour and it can be indicated by the falling number. Higher the number, lower is the activity and viceversa. The enzymes activity is however fairly slow, specially compared to commercial yeast activity, but it is also influenced by hidratation of the dough and temperature. For some other reasons, retarded refigerated dough it is not always best but it depends from the type of flour used.

Your guess is right about the timing, but you need to consider also the three other factor explained above.

In ceratin dough, made by weaker flour with a high damaged starch and high enzymes activity, with the addition of a higly hidrated dough and a fairly high temperature (above 20 degree celsius), the dough could mature enough in few hours, or at least enough to guarrantee a good browning.

The Poteasi enzymes is equally important both for digestibility, and for weakening a too strong gluten , which may result in an excessive elastic dough and a gum-like baking product.

The situation I was addressing was one in which one of our fellow members, Snowdy, was trying to make a dough to be used within a few hours. I had recommended that he increase the amount of yeast and to use warmer water, to expedite the fermentation process. He used high-gluten flour, which was the flour he had on hand, along with a high hydration percentage. The dough turned out to be usable under the circumstances, but the crust didn't brown up as much as usual. That got me to wondering whether the enzymatic activity was too slow, and especially so for a "strong" flour, which you seem to indicate was the case, at least in part.

I am generally aware of the digestibity aspects you discuss. I have had several discussions wth the chief pizzaiolo at Naples 45, a specialist in Neapolitan style pizzas in NYC, and he has told me on different occasions that the pizzas he makes using the Caputo 00 flour are more digestible. We didn't get into discussions about falling numbers (which are hard to come by at the retail level anyway) or alpha-amylase and protease ezymatic activity, but what you say seems to make great sense. I myself had a 10-inch Neapolitan style pizza tonight and ate the whole thing without feeling full.